She ran a lavender-skinned finger along the scar across her nose, and her honey eyes met his, intensified, as if she were about to speak.
The musty shroud went over his head once more.
He fought the weakening, but his knees trembled and surrendered anyway as he slipped from reality.
Leigh squinted in the bright sunlight of the radiant dawn peeking through the ironwood trees. A silhouette shaded the brightness. Ambriel’s head.
Back in Vervewood, then. “How long?”
“A few hours.” Ambriel leaned forward. “They used a signal fire.”
“Is everyone accounted for?”
“Yes. The dark-elves kept their word.”
At least there was that. The party had been returned, and the dark-elves could keep their word. For better or for worse.
I do not speak for the light-elves, but they have not attacked you. They do not desire war. He fought the urge to palm his face. What idiocy had possessed him? Hope? Optimism?
They do not? Then it is because they are weak, and ripe for conquest. This negotiation is over. Deliver your king’s answer within three days.
These people, these cultures, were foreign and mysterious. And he had no business negotiating diplomacy. He was a mage, not a diplomat. His skill lay in destruction, and he’d been tasked with securing peace?
And yet, here we are. Because only mages still used Old Emaurrian.
Queen Matryona would be waging her war—the only question was when. Her offer was unconscionable, but he had to write to Jon. “Pen, paper, and dove?”
Ambriel gestured to someone who departed quickly.
“Thank you.” And he had the dubious honor of notifying Ambriel of the imminent danger facing his people. “You might want to prepare your defenses.” When Ambriel drew his brows together, Leigh sighed. “Matryona has taken your tendency toward peace for weakness. She expressed an intention to capitalize on that.”
Ambriel closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, lengthily. He did not deflate; it was not hope that escaped him. He blinked sluggishly. No, a sort of weariness. “We are already prepared. And we will send your king the Memory of Vervewood, our priestess Aiolian Windsong, as emissary.”
He’d met Aiolian. Behind her stone-wall face sat two all-knowing ancient eyes. He shivered. There was an eerie quality to her, like being in a room with the moon or the stars. But colder, quieter, and more distant. Another shiver. “Very nice… I’m sure she’ll stare him into submission.”
Ambriel didn’t waver. “You’re going with her.”
Folly! Sitting up, Leigh shook his head. “If I go with her, who’s going to protect you from the dark-elves? This is ridiculous.”
Ambriel straightened, his fair hair catching the sheen of morning. “We will stand on our own until you return. Your help has been greatly valued, but we will survive. Your king will learn we face imminent war with the dark-elves… and you are uniquely needed at his ear, to convince him our cause is worthy, as you have seen for yourself.”
He had a point.
Aiolian’s stony visage certainly wasn’t going to win any sympathy. No, the situation called for someone who had been here, seen and heard all he’d needed to win Emaurrian hearts and minds. And he was it.
“Very well. I will go and return victorious. My king won’t tolerate Queen Matryona’s behavior. He was a paladin once, a devout servant of Terra. And Terra abhors the suffering of the innocent.” If Jon insisted on wagging the righteous finger of justice so much, the least he could do would be to occasionally poke a tyrant with it.
But would he take on another war?
Ambriel held his gaze. “Your arrival has been the saving grace of our people.”
Leigh scoffed. Saving grace? He’d botched the whole of this. “Any other diplomat would have—”
Ambriel took his hand. “No other.”
Chapter 42
Rielle covered her mouth, swaying with the deck as the Liberté bobbed on the waves.
Her brother—her living brother—rounded the desk and rushed toward her. Her own feet refused to move, and her knees buckled. Brennan’s grip tightened on her arm, bracing her, but he let her go just as Liam pulled her into an embrace.
Tears burst from her eyes and streamed down her face, dampening the smooth cotton of his shirt.
How could this be? She pressed her face to his solid chest, breathed in the salt on his skin and the wine on his breath, closed her eyes and absorbed his warmth.
It was him. Liam. Her brother.
“You’re alive,” she whispered, but no more than a mangled sob came out.
He stroked the back of her neck softly. “Something like that.”
Alive. He was alive.
For nearly a decade, she’d believed her entire family dead, but here was Liam, somehow alive, when all of Laurentine had burned. Two years her senior, he’d be twenty-four now.
She pulled back to gaze up at his face. A shadow of the fifteen-year-old she remembered still lingered in the planes of his face, the same slightly upturned mouth, light blond lashes, thick eyebrows. He sported a rugged golden stubble now, but she still recognized his prominent jaw and cleft chin beneath.
“How is it possible?” she whispered. When he only looked back at her with searching eyes, she reached up to touch his face. “I watched Laurentine burn… and no one… no one else… escaped.”
He drew in a breath and held it, his muscles stiffening. Why?
“I’ll tell you everything,” he said finally. “Let’s sit.” He led her to one of two tufted chairs before his desk and seated her. After rounding the desk once more, he eyed Brennan coldly. “You too, Marcel.”
Brennan hesitated but stalked to the second chair. He waited until Liam sat before he did.
Liam leaned forward, elbows on the desk, and cracked his knuckles. He nodded to the bottle. “Wine?”
Before she could answer, he poured her some. But he didn’t afford Brennan the same courtesy. She raised an eyebrow.
Liam took a drink. “You’re married?”
“No,” she answered at the same time Brennan said, “Betrothed.”
Brennan leaned back, posture relaxed but jaw clenched. “You have a problem?”
Icy eyes stared him down to the sound of knuckles cracking. “I may have been gone for nine years, but I wasn’t dead. I heard what you did to my sister.”
“I’m right here,” she growled. “And is this really more important than how you’re alive?”
Brennan sneered. “So… what? Are you going to thrash me now? Have me flogged? Throw me overboard? Make me walk the plank?”
Liam grinned broadly, a smile so bright it would have been handsome had it reached his eyes. “Oh, I trust my sister to handle her own enemies. She’s a Lothaire.”
“And what does that mean?” Brennan shot back.
Two chairs fell as Liam and Brennan leaped to their feet.
She glared at Brennan, clenching her jaw so tight her teeth cracked.
Brennan’s gaze dropped to hers. The tension fled his body. He swallowed. “I—spoke without thought.”
She stared down at the white knuckles of her fist. The urge to hit him slowly subsided.
She dropped her head in one hand but covered Brennan’s arm with the other.
Slowly, he righted his chair, moved it closer to her, and sat.
If she were honest, the Lothaires—her parents included—had been masters of the game, their web of spies and gossips working intrigues in their favor. She, however, had left the Houses and all their machinations behind after what had happened at Laurentine.
The House of Lothaire was no longer feared, and she, its scion, was no more than a cautionary tale told to young debutantes eyeing handsome lords.
Its scion.
She looked up at Liam. Morning light shone in his golden hair. “You—you’re the marquis of Laurentine. The rightful lord of our House.”
He folded his hands together and met her gaze unequivocally. “I a
m Verib, captain of the Liberté.”
“But—”
“Liam Amadour Lothaire died nine years ago.” He exhaled deeply. “And he’s not coming back.”
She leaned forward. “Why not?”
Shaking his head, he looked away. “I don’t want it. Any of it.”
Being the lord of Laurentine came with money, status, influence, power…
But he didn’t want the duties that came with it, did he? Ruling the march, collecting taxes, being called to court, swearing fealty to a monarch, a political marriage, securing heirs?
Any of it. She rubbed her lips together and lowered her gaze. He didn’t want any of it…
He’d been alive all these years, and if he knew about what had happened at Tregarde, then he had clearly known she’d lived. And he hadn’t returned. Hadn’t written. Hadn’t given her a single word of his own existence.
“Any of it,” she repeated softly, and raised her eyes to his.
The intensity of his gaze gave way to softness, and he looked into his bottle of wine, swirling it absentmindedly. “I can’t go back.”
She slapped the armrests. “Why didn’t you tell me you were alive?” She fought back the tears welling in her eyes. “I could have kept it a secret, if that’s what you’d wanted.”
The soft lapping of the waves pervaded, accompanied by the gentle creak of the bobbing Liberté.
Liam glanced at Brennan. “Leave us.” When Brennan only eyed Rielle, she nodded her permission.
Brennan didn’t look away, his carriage completely relaxed. At ease. He rose, gave a slight inclination of his head to Liam, and left the cabin. Even after he’d closed the door softly, she still looked the way he’d left.
What was so private that Liam wouldn’t say in front of Brennan?
“Do you trust him?” His wine in hand, Liam rose from his armchair and moved back to the gallery windows, resting an arm against the frame above him. The daylight played on his face and in the shining hues of his hair.
“I do.” Brennan had died for her.
“You shouldn’t.” He took a drink. “A man who’s betrayed you once will betray you again.” The hoarseness of an old wound laced his voice.
What had happened to him? In nine long years, she couldn’t fathom what he might have gone through to end up captain of this ship.
But he didn’t know Brennan. It was true enough that Brennan had betrayed her, but he’d matured since then. Become a new man. “People change.”
Liam grinned bitterly. “No. They only think they do.”
She shook her head. “What happened to you?”
“You remember Mama’s bower? How it jutted out over the cliffs, overlooking the Shining Sea?”
She smiled. They’d all spent many cheery days there. “Of course.”
“One of the marauders was torturing me in there when the fire started.” He stared out at the bay. “He’d bound me in arcanir and tied me to the bed with ropes, but when he ran out of the room, I was able to pull a hand free… and then freed myself. Only by then, the fire had become unstoppable. The castle was falling apart, and so was the hall right outside the door. I looked back at the window. I had no choice. I jumped.”
Her mouth fell open. “You jumped from that height?”
He drew in a long breath. “Bound in arcanir, it was either that or burn to death.” He exhaled slowly. “There was only one chance of survival.”
The terror he must have felt in that moment… The choice of burning to death or jumping and hoping not to hit the cliffs or the rocks, not to land hard enough to break his bones…
And it was all because of me. And my éveil.
What would he think if he knew? She looked him over. Did he know?
No, she didn’t think he did. And she could tell him, not now, not when she’d only just gotten him back.
Someday.
“I awoke aboard a Sileni merchantman that had escaped the harbor. I introduced myself under an alias, joined their crew… lost a fight with some pirates, and ended up sold at fifteen.”
Enslaved. “Oh, Liam…”
“They can never catch Northerners, you know? The Skaddish. They fight to the death, every last one of them. But a few of us Emaurrians take after their pale looks. And the Sonbaharans love that.” He set down the wine.
Thahab. Golden one. Farrad’s voice echoed in her mind, and she shivered.
“House Abdal’s zahib saw fight in my eyes and decided it’d be interesting to see how my life would end. Before I ever took to the seas, I spent five years in Harifa as a gladiator.”
Divine—
No…
She’d only suffered for months what he’d suffered for years—and worse than she had. The masters of Sonbahar invested heavily in gladiators, who earned their keep winning purses and attracting clients seeking pleasure, women and men, which the gladiators had no say in accepting or rejecting.
And Liam had suffered that for five years. His life on the line, his pride ignored, his choices taken away. All that time, he’d been abused, and she hadn’t known at all.
She rose and cautiously joined him at the windows. The waters were almost clear now, in the brightness of the morning sun. She folded herself into him, rested her cheek against his chest. “I’m so sorry, Liam.”
She told him about her own past four months here, and although he went rigid when it came to Shadow, Sincuore, and House Hazael, he wrapped an arm around her. Held her. For a while, he remained quiet, holding her and looking out with her.
She nuzzled his chest. “If you had a ship, I wish you’d come home.”
“Home?” He pulled away and crossed his arms. “To do what? To be forced to bend the knee before a king? Forced into a marriage? Forced to play politics?” He narrowed his eyes and nodded toward the bay. “On the seas, no man lords over me. Never again. I’m free. And I’m never submitting again.”
“You could have told me you were alive. A courier. A letter. Something.”
“Better that no one knew I was alive. Including you.”
Was returning to be marquis of Laurentine truly that terrible a fate? Yes, he’d have to run the march, appear at court on the king’s whim, swear fealty, marry, and secure heirs, but he’d want for nothing. As marquis of Laurentine, with no arranged marriage in effect, he’d have his pick of brides. He’d have money. Power. Influence. “You want nothing to do with Laurentine?”
“No, I don’t. Not with any of it.”
“Including me?”
His eyes widened, and his arms slowly fell to his sides. A sullen gray faded his expression, and he rubbed his mouth. “It’s true that I didn’t come back and I didn’t write. But I didn’t stop caring.” He raised his gaze to hers. “I followed news of you. I knew you’d had your éveil and had gone to the Tower. I knew what that beast of a Marcel did to you. I knew you’d denied him your hand and were making a future for yourself.”
He’d gotten news of her and denied her the same? She bit back sharp words. “And knowing this about me comforted you?”
“Most of the time.”
“Yet you denied me the same comfort. Instead, I thought I’d—” Killed you. “I thought I’d lost you. I thought you were dead. I didn’t even deserve a scrap of comfort, news of you.”
His mouth thinned to a white line. “I couldn’t—I can’t go back.”
“Why not?”
He paced the cabin. “I just can’t.”
She stomped her foot. “Why not?”
He slicked back some stray wisps of blond hair and shook his head. “There… There’d be questions.”
“So what?”
He grabbed the armchair Brennan had been sitting in and leaned over its back, braced against it. He hung his head. “Was I to tell them I’d run from Laurentine? That I was too scared to come back?”
“You were fifteen!”
“And that I’d been sold into slavery?”
“It wasn’t your fault—”
“And then take al
l their judgmental looks, their pitying glares, their whispers about what happened to me? Moved like a pawn in the arena, treated like a thing, barely even human, rented out every night?” His voice cracked, hollowed. “With everyone knowing all that, with the truth laid bare, could I ever be a man among the Houses? Would they ever see me as anything more than a…”
Victim. The Houses set upon weakness like vultures and took power mercilessly. What little influence Laurentine had retained after the fire, it had lost with her humiliation at Brennan’s hands.
But it didn’t matter. She stormed toward him and grabbed his shoulders. “It doesn’t matter.”
He glanced at her, eyes bloodshot. “What?”
She squeezed his shoulders. “It doesn’t matter. Who cares what the Houses think?” She searched his eyes and the growing curiosity there. “We’re Lothaires. If anyone says anything, we’ll destroy them.”
He frowned.
“Any tongue dares speak against you, and we’ll make sure it trembles at the thought next time.”
“How?”
She raised a hand next to her face, smiled slyly, and snapped her fingers. A flame sparked to life there. “The options are many, dear brother. I hold with fire.”
In his eyes, the flame glowed, danced, grew as he straightened. “We can’t stop them from talking.”
“It is precisely their talk that will give us the opportunity to demonstrate our power. We will duel. Let them talk. Let them talk, so they might see their words burn.”
The flame flickered in his eyes. Her hand shook. She extinguished the fire and made a show of dusting off her hands. Her anima was low, but encouraging him was worth every last bit.
He sighed, but a smile spread across his face. “You’ve become strong, little bee. Stronger than I ever could have imagined.”
Weakness had reduced her to ashes, so much so she had nearly wanted to cease existing, but it was only from those ashes that she could rise anew. Leigh’s betrayal, being sold into slavery, losing her child… These things had been painful, each worse than the last.
But she was still standing.
That pain hadn’t destroyed her. And if the pain hadn’t, the Houses had no chance.
By Dark Deeds (Blade and Rose Book 2) Page 44
